Site Stats

Rayman 2: The Great Escapes Preview

One of Playstation's very first games, Rayman is making his return after being absent for over four years from the scene. He has already appeared on the N64 and Dreamcast, but many wondered what happened to the PS version. I've been holding out on the preview because I thought the game has been cancelled, mainly because Ubi Soft didn't say anything about a PS version for about a year and a half, until now. Ubi Soft has just released new screens and info of Rayman 2, and I must say that the PS version may not look as good as the DC version but it is on par with the Nintendo counterpart. Read our first look on the game.

&nbsp
Wow! That is the only word that can describe these amazing visuals. Ubi Soft will most likely pull out the nicest looking platformer in quite awhile. Everything about the visuals is great, environments are probably the game's best visual feature. The colors are very bright and they illuminate each and every levels with lush detail. Textures look immensely detailed, and are incredibly smooth. Rayman is without a doubt the best looking adventure title yet, the way that each on screen character moves is so smooth, and the best thing is that there is no sign of any clipping. Everything moves along at a super smooth 30 frames per sec. Seems like the PS' bottleneck 2MB RAM isn't such a big deal after all.

&nbsp
With the huge, and we mean huge advantages that the CD has over the cartridge, Ubi Soft was able to utilize all of the extra space and include exclusive PS levels, and so much more that I want so save for later. One of the features that Ubi Soft implemented with Rayman 2 is the fact that you can pop your game disc into a CD Player and listen to all of its music. What's more is that the gameplay has been slightly changed, instead of rescuing Lums, Rayman must now rescue his friends who have been captured. And when you do that, your health will re- fill while your life bar extends. It seems as if Ubi Soft wants to make Rayman 2 more than just a port, but to kind of say "I'm sorry", they are also stuffing so many little features for all of us gamers out there. The audio will also be clearer, sharper and have much better clarity over the DC version, Ubi Soft has managed to clean up the audio further for their PS release of Rayman 2. Speaking of audio, nearly every single Rayman character with a dialogue will have a voice acting segment, that's right tons and tons of voice acting will be flowing in the PS version of Rayman 2. Oh and did we mention that neither the DC or N64 version have any of those features? All of these awesome things... wait, what? Rayman 2 will also feature Pocketstation support, as well as full support for the Dual Shock/analog controller.

&nbsp
Rayman 2's project manager Shi Hai promises better looking textures, more lighting effects, and a better visual presentation as the game gets closer to its release date, which is about five or six months from now. I thought that the visuals ate near perfection now, I can't wait to check out the final version. Rayman 2: The Great Escapes is expected to be released September 2000.